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THINK POSITIVE

It’s claimed that success doesn’t happen by accident, but by the choices we make as a result of our daily habits.

It’s tradition – or you could say a habit – to set new goals at the start of the year. “This is because a new year signifies a new beginning and the potential for better days to come,” explains Dr Lillian Nejad, Melbourne-based clinical psychologist at Omnipsych.

“As humans we’re inherently hopeful and therefore predisposed to strive to do and be better, so every year we tend to set goals from a place of optimism – that these are achievable if we want them enough,” adds Dr Nejad.

And one of the best ways to achieve these goals and keep them at the forefront of our minds is to structure daily habits around them.

“Breaking your goal into smaller, more specific, simple habits and repeating them consistently over time generates a ‘habit loop’, which means they automatically become part of your day and naturally much easier to attain,” she says.

According to Dr Nejad, neuroscience has shown that our brains have the remarkable capacity to change. “No matter how entrenched a behaviour or strong a neural pathway has become, you have the power to weaken current pathways and generate new ones by altering habitual patterns of behaviour, which confirms that if your brain can change so can you.”